ISIL killed 1,432 Syrians outside battle since June - monitor

While it has killed a number of foreigners including journalists and aid workers, the overwhelming number of the group's victims have been from the local population

Middle East

17 Kasım 2014 Pazartesi 23:35

World Bulletin/News Desk

The militant ISIL group has killed 1,432 Syrians off the battlefield since the end of June when it declared a so-called "caliphate" in the territory under its control, a group monitoring the war said on Monday.

ISIL, which has seized parts of northern and eastern Syria as well northern and western Iraq, has often displayed bodies in public after the killings.

The hardline group, an offshoot of al Qaeda, said on Sunday it had killed an American convert aid worker in a video issued online, an act which U.S. President Barack Obama described as "pure evil."

While it has killed a number of foreigners including journalists and aid workers, the overwhelming number of the group's victims have been from the local population, said Rami Abdulrahman who runs the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The majority -- 882 -- were civilians and included two children and five women, he said, describing killings since June 29.

The children were shot dead separately in Aleppo province. One was accused of taking pictures of an ISIL headquarters and the other was killed after being accused of insulting the Prophet Mohammad.

The group killed 483 captured members of Syrian pro-government forces in the same period and 63 members of insurgent and Kurdish fighting groups in Syria. It also put to death four of its own members, Abdulrahman added.

The group has killed people from across ethnicities and sects in Syria and Iraq. In Syria it killed hundreds of members of the Sheitaat tribe which it had been battling in the east of the country.